And the People Rejoiced?

Bloomberg:  Greece wins Easier Terms on Debt as EU Hails Rescue Formula

"In the latest bid to keep the 17-nation euro intact, the ministers cut the rates on bailout loans, suspended interest payments for a decade, gave Greece more time to repay and engineered a Greek bond buyback. The country was also cleared to receive a 34.4 billion-euro (44.7 billion USD) loan installment in December. The euro rose to a three-week high on the agreement."

While this was certainly a welcome step, this event was pretty fully anticipated already.   From the same story.

"The euro was 0.2 percent higher against the dollar after announcement of the deal on Greece, trading at 1.2992 at 8:25 a.m. in Brussels after reaching 1.3009 earlier. Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 Index gained 0.7 percent, while contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) of shares advanced 0.4 percent."

That's the best we can do?  The Euro has been saved and it rejoices by moving all of 0.2% ?

Over the last month EUR has varied between 1.27 and 1.30.  Less than a 3% range.

Granted we are on the highs right now.  However over the last year  EUR has varied between about 1.20 and 1.35 so we are sitting squarely in the middle of the range.

Perhaps there will be a more significant follow though later - but  this latest event certainly brings into question the hypothesis that what was holding back the world economy was uncertainty about the future of the Euro.

Way to be a good loser

 Reports:  Romney says Obama won by offering 'gifts' to minorities and young voters

"With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift," Romney said.   "Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women," he continued. "And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents' plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.  You can imagine for somebody making 25,000 or 30,000 or 35,000 a year, being told you're now going to get free health care, particularly if you don't have it, getting free health care worth, what, 10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge," he said. "Likewise with Hispanic voters, free healthcare was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group."

Explanations for Why Romney Lost

In the five days since the presidential election there have been literally hundreds of statements by pundits commenting on how the Romney campaign / Republican Party lost the election and what they will need to do going forward.  Almost all of the explanations that have been put forward fall into one of five categories.  Some arguments straddle multiple categories.  Below I will go over a few of the arguments put forward with some commentary.  I am probably not bringing much new to the table - just putting the arguments all in one place. 

The Messenger - this is a favorite of hard-core conservatives.  The message was correct but the messenger was wrong.  I am actually somewhat sympathetic to a number of these criticisms.

• Gov. Romney was unable to make his best case - the Romney campaign started from the premise that people were most concerned about the economy.  Exit polls seem to bear that out. In the Edison Research exit poll conducted for the AP 59% of respondents said that the economy was the most important issue to them.  However Gov. Romney only won 49-48 among that cohort.  Gov. Romney was never able to adequately tie the poor economy to President Obama.  53% of voters blamed President Bush for the bad economy while only 38% blamed President Obama.  Nor was Gov. Romney ever able to adequately explain what he would do to improve the economy (see that argument here).
• Gov. Romney had difficulty with the healthcare issue - during the primary Gov Romney was attacked for having implemented RomneyCare (aka ObamaCare light) while serving as governor of Massachusetts.  Despite vowing to repeal ObamaCare on day one of a Romney administration he never was able to explain the distinction between the program he was proud of and the one that he was promising to repeal (see here).  Among the 18% of exit polled voters who said that health care was the most important issue to them Obama beat Romney by a margin of 75-24 (see here).
• Gov. Romney was an easy target in Ohio - Gov. Romney likely needed to win Ohio to win the presidency.  There were other paths that he could have taken to the White House but they were even more improbable.  However his association with Bain Capital and his Let Them Go Bankrupt article in the New York Times made it easy to attack him in the auto-lands of Ohio.  His TV ad which Chrysler publicly repudiated kept the Ohio focus on his problem with the auto industry - which was right where the Obama campaign wanted it.
• Gov. Romney failed the everyman test - polls asking if Gov Romney understands the concerns of people like you showed him consistently below 50%  (see here).  The fact that he was the son of a multimillionaire / governor, and that he himself is a multimillionaire and former governor, and that his wife owns and trains show horses all probably didn't help him appear like the everyman.  You can't blame him for those things though - he could still understand the concerns of others.  However his refusal to release tax returns, his "47% Speech", Rep. Ryan's "Makers-Takers Speech" and his seeming concern for the tax status of the wealthiest 1% all made it all a difficult sell.  President Obama consistently rated in the high 50s and low 60s by this metric (see here). 

The Execution - allows Romney supporters to blame the campaign managers.  I am skeptical of their impact.

• The primaries sapped Romney's campaign funds - see here for that argument.  While the Obama campaign did raise and spend more than the Romney campaign, independent expenditures more than made up for the difference.  Per here  the Obama campaign plus independent groups supporting Obama spent 396MM.  The Romney campaign plus independent groups supporting Romney spent 472MM.  Furthermore, while money is extremely important there are declining returns to scale to TV ads.  Would more campaign ads in OH really have changed the results of the election? 
• The Romney team let the Obama team attack for too long- (here from 4:30 to 6:30) - this sounds like whining to me.  This was the most expensive race in history, the Romney team spent more (472MM to 396MM), and spent a higher percent on negative ads (91% to 85%)   Hence, it is safe to say that President Obama had more negative ads run against him than anyone in history.
• Inaccurate polling - here and here are reporting that Republican insiders were blindsided by the results of the election as their internal polls showed Romney with a lead in many of the swing states and Republican Senate candidates performing significantly better than they ended up doing.  I call bullshit on this one.  You did not need to have a fancy Nate-Silver model to look at the general trend of public polls in the swing states and see that Gov. Romney was in trouble- as were a few of the Republican Senate hopefuls.  Republican pundits argued that the public polling numbers showing an Obama win were based on faulty voter screens which over-represented Democrats (see here here and  here) but they presented no hard evidence of why the screens were wrong (they turned out to be correct).  I am sure that the pollsters understood their own polls and could see they were in trouble.  If not then they are the worst pollsters ever - since everyone else understood it.
• The Beaching of Project Orca - see here here.  The Romney campaign's super-duper get out to vote (GOTV) system may have fallen apart on election day but I doubt that this failure had much impact on the outcome of the election.  The swing states had been saturated with election ads - it is unlikely that any call that a swing state voter could receive on election day (short of a call from the candidate himself) could influence which way s/he votes.  Furthermore in a presidential election such as this one I doubt that election day GOTV calls have significant impact in turning out voters.  If by election day a potential voter was not planning on voting then a call from an unknown person or a robocall is certainly not going to get them out either.  Perhaps calling could help in cases where a voter needs assistance getting to the polls -  but my experience (yes I have coordinated a few GOTVs) is that as of election day most voters who need such assistance either have already made arrangements or they are not going.  In local election years GOTV is very valuable, in midterm years it can be valuable, but in presidential election it is not so useful.

The Environment - hey there was no way that we could win under these circumstances!  Both campaign managers and Romney supporters could use these as defenses.

• Increased Hispanic / African American / Asian / youth representation in the electorate.  - see here While it is true that these groups turned out in slightly higher numbers than say in 2004 this is not really an explanation for losing.  It is kind of like saying "I lost because the people voted against me".   There are a number of potential voters.  A campaign can to a small degree influence who is registered and who turns out.  Other than that you have to appeal to the voters who show up.  If you don't then you lose.  Why this campaign did not appeal to the voters can be found in other sections.
• Hurricane Sandy made President Obama look good - see here here here and here.  Most voters gave the President and the federal government high marks for their response to the hurricane (see here).  However it is unlikely that made the whole difference.  As Nate Silver pointed out Romney was not leading prior to the hurricane either.  As a counter factual if the federal assistance had gone as badly as Hurricane Katrina did (see here) then President Obama would have been blamed for it as President Bush was.  The hurricane gave President Obama an opportunity to pass or fail ...and he passed.
• Gov. Chris Christie's embrace of President Obama following Sandy made Obama appear bipartisan - see here here here here.  There is probably some truth to this as well.  But again Gov Romney was not leading prior to the hurricane either. 
• Hurricane Isaac shortened the Republican National Convention depriving Gov. Romney of a chance to define himself -see here.  This is a bit of a stretch.  Gov. Romney still got a prime time opportunity to speak unfiltered to a national audience.  Furthermore, the evidence(see here)  is that convention bounces tend to be significant but short lived.  Actually if anything contributed to the dampening of the convention bounce it was not Hurricane Isaac but the opportunity lost by having the convention focus turned to Clint Eastwood's bizarre speech to a chair.
• The economy is improving and that helped Obama - yes it is true that the economy is improving however we are still in the deepest economic contraction since the Great Depression.  Among exit polled voters 39% said the economy was getting better, 20% said the economy was getting worse, and 29% said no change.  That is not a clear winning coalition.  Ray Fair's economic model of elections predicted President Obama would get 49% of the popular vote - certainly not the "throw the bums out" vote but also not a clear ringing endorsement.  In all likelihood there was an opportunity for Gov. Romney here but not nearly so big a one as was often assumed.

My Tinfoil Hat is Too Tight

•  The Mainstream Media was biased against Romney - see here  This is a constant claim from the right wing.  Fortunately we have the unbiased view here and here.
• Obama won through massive voter fraud - yup as predicted if Romney lost there would be cries of voter fraud.  See here here here here ...there are hundreds more.  I will be interested to see if there are any successful prosecutions (other than this one and this one) or just vague allegations meant to delegitimatize President Obama's win. 
• The Department of Labor fixed the jobs numbers to make the Obama administration look better-  you think this is a joke right?  see here here here
• "Mitt Romney told donors on a call Wednesday that President Barack Obama outmatched him by offering "gifts" to African Americans, Hispanics and young voters, according to various news outlets.  " - see here.

The final category is The Message.  I will save that one for the next posting.

Project ORCA

Project ORCA was the Romney campaign's super-duper get out to vote (GOTV) effort - which apparently had some problems.  Some are now attributing his loss in part to the mess up.

Here is a pre-election report on Project ORCA

And here is one person's experience with the great whale in action

The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA

Anyone who has ever participated in a GOTV effort can understand this guys pain.  Sometimes simpler is better.  Word of caution:  this article seems to be getting reposted all over the web (see here) as the final word on Project Orca - so I do wonder if perhaps this one person's opinion will fairly or unfairly become the dominant view on Romney's GOTV effort.  I would like to see more post game analysis of it before I attribute the loss to this guy.


=============================================

ADDED 11/10/2012  8:51 AM:

ORCA, Mitt Romney’s high-tech get-out-the-vote program, crashed on Election Day   

“The Garden definitely kind of buckled under the strain,” Zac Moffatt, the campaign’s digital director, confirmed in an interview. “The system wasn’t ready for the amount of information incoming.”

Despite the problems, ­Moffatt said, the campaign had reports by the end of the day from 91 percent of counties, with information about 14 million voters, and he discounted speculation from frustrated campaign volunteers who worried the problems might have cost Romney the election. “I definitely understand the frustration of people,” he said, while adding that the problems were not “election determinative.” "

Comparison of final national polls for 2012 presidential election

Margin of Error has a comparison of how 26 different polls did at predicting the national popular vote for president.

• Best Performers (in order) :   
• You Gov,   Reuters/Ipsos,   Daily KOS/ SEIU/PPP,   PPP
• Worst Performers (in order):  
• Gallup,   Rasmussen,   NPR - overestimated Romney
• UT / National Journal - overestimated Obama

The Monkey Cage has a similar comparison without the margin of error ranges

Post Election Thoughts

• Congratulations to:   Ted O'Brien who won a seat in the NY State Senate.   He will do a great job.  New Yorkers are lucky to have  him.
• Winner:   Nate Silver.  The right wing press spent days maligning him ...but assuming Florida goes Obama, Nate will have predicted the winner of the presidential vote correctly in all 50 states.
• Loser:  the Gallup Poll whose daily tracking polls consistently showed Gov. Romney well ahead.  As of October 23rd they had Romney beating Obama nationally by 5 points (see here and here).  The poll-geek community was scratching its heads as to what sort of likely-voter screen Gallup was using considering other polls showed the race in a dead tie. (Obama ended up winning by 2 nationally.)
• Loser:  Rasmussen Reports.  These guys are considered credible pollsters (unlike say Wenzel Research) yet for the second national election in a row Rasmussen consistently biased their polls to the right.  Below is a list of Rasmussen's final poll results for swing states.

State	Rasmussen	Actual Result
Colorado	Romney +3	Obama +4
Florida	Romney +2	Obama +1*
Virginia	Romney +2	Obama +3
Iowa	Romney +1	Obama +6
Wisconsin	tie	Obama +7
Ohio	tie	Obama +2
New Hampshire	Obama +2	Obama +6
Nevada	Obama +2	Obama  +6

• Winner and Surprise of the night:   Heidi Heitkamp (D) beats Rick Berg (R) for ND Senate seat formerly occupied by Kent Conrad (D). See here. The polls had Berg up.  But it was not a heavily polled race.  Data below from 538 Blog.

Polls	Date	Dem	Rep	Margin
Mason-Dixon	28-Oct	45	47	Berg +2.0
Rasmussen	18-Oct	45	50	Berg +5.0
Forum/Essman	15-Oct	40	50	Berg +10.0
Mason-Dixon	5-Oct	47	47	Tie
Rasmussen	11-Jul	40	49	Berg +9.0
Mason-Dixon	6-Jun	47	46	Heitkamp +1.0
Forum/Essman	8-May	44	51	Berg +7.0

• Loser:  Sen Mitch McConnell.  McConnell's stated goal  (see here and here) for the Republican Party was to deny President Obama a second term.  That did not happen.  The current Senate has 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans and 2 Independents both of whom caucused with the Democrats.  In the 2012 Senate elections there were 21 Democrat seats, 10 Republican seats, and 2 Independent seats up for re-election.  McConnell needed to hold his R seats and flip 3 of the D+I seats (if they won the presidency) or 4 D+I  seats (if they did not win the presidency) to take control of the US Senate.   That looked very doable a year ago.  Instead he net lost two seats (see below).
• Losers:  the Tea Party who for the second election in a row stymied the Republican Party's chances to takes control of the US Senate by backing inept candidates in Indiana, Missouri, and Montana.  Amazingly if you read this mornings postmortem of the presidential election as seen by Tea Partiers - the problem was that Romney was not conservative enough.  While it is certainly in the best interests of the Ds to help the Tea Party nominate more lousy Tea Party Republican candidates - it is not in the best interest of the country to have a single sane party.
• Winner of The Harry Reid Award:  Claire McCaskill.  The award celebrates the incumbent Senator with the worst approval rating who wins re-election only due to the opposing party nominating an incompetent contender.  Not only did McCaskill win, she came from behind to drub Akin by a margin of 55-39.
• Winner:  Senator Dick Lugar (R).  After years of distinguished service to his country Lugar was upset by Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock in a primary.  One of Mourdock's primary criticisms of Lugar was the latter's ability to work across the aisle.  Yes bipartisanship is a sin now.   Mourdock promptly imploded losing the red state of Indiana to the Ds.
• Winner:  all those voters who stood in long lines to be part of our continuing great experiment in democracy.  We have a lot to be proud of.

Body Slam!

McMahon’s $100 Million Misses Connecticut Senate Seat Win

"Linda McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE), lost her second U.S. Senate bid in three years after spending almost $100 million of her fortune on two Connecticut campaigns.  McMahon, a 64-year-old Republican whose husband, Vince, still runs the Stamford, Connecticut-based company, lost to Democrat Chris Murphy, 57 percent to 41 percent, according to the Associated Press  with 11 percent of precincts counted. Murphy, 39, is a three-term U.S. representative from Cheshire. "

I am not sure which is more impressive. 

• That the WWE generates such huge income or 
• someone would be willing to spend 100MM to be one of 100 Senators or
• someone can spend 100MM on a campaign and still lose

I called it a Body Slam but there must be a more appropriate name.  See here.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong With This?

Million-Dollar Traders Replaced With Machines Amid Cuts

"UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s biggest bank, fired its head of credit-default swaps index trading, David Gallers, last week, with no plan to fill the position, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, the bank replaced Gallers with computer algorithms that trade using mathematical models, said the people, who asked not to be identified because moves are private. "

Its like the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  Two great tastes that taste great together ...credit default swaps and algorithmic trading!

And Chicago Super-Accurate Polling says....

If I were to run through my LinkedIn list and poll a pre-selected panel of 100 persons I would bet that I could come up with nearly any result for this years elections that I wanted.  You want a poll that shows President Obama winning 65-35 ?  Chicago Super-Accurate Polling can produce that poll.  You want a poll showing Governor Romney winning 65-35 ?  We can do that too.  Then Chicago Super-Accurate Polling will package up your poll as a press release and send it out to the media.  But would the media publish Chicago Super-Accurate Polling polls?  Well they seem willing to disseminate the results of polls done by Wenzel Strategies so why not us?

Who is Wenzel Strategies?  They seem to be the favorite pollster of Citizen's United and of The Family Research Council.   Well just because they are affiliated with far right organizations does not mean their polls are necessarily biased (does it?).   Frankly I had never heard of them until I noticed their name come up as polling in Ohio for the Presidential race.  Here are the most recent results of Ohio polls (per 538 blog)

Polls	Date	Dem	Rep	Margin
Ipsos (online)	11/02/12	47	45	Obama +2.0
NBC/Marist	11/01/12	51	45	Obama +6.0
CNN/Opinion Research *	11/01/12	47	44	Obama +3.0
We Ask America	11/01/12	50.2	45.8	Obama +4.4
Ipsos (online)	11/01/12	47	45	Obama +2.0
Rasmussen	11/01/12	49	49	Tie
Ipsos (online)	10/31/12	48	45	Obama +3.0
Wenzel Strategies	10/31/12	46	49	Romney +3.0
PPP	10/30/12	50	45	Obama +5.0
U. of Cincinnati/Ohio Poll *	10/30/12	48	46	Obama +2.0
Grove	10/29/12	48	45	Obama +3.0
SurveyUSA	10/29/12	48	45	Obama +3.0
The New York Times/Quinnipiac	10/28/12	50	45	Obama +5.0
PPP	10/28/12	51	47	Obama +4.0
Rasmussen	10/28/12	48	50	Romney +2.0
Gravis Marketing	10/27/12	50	49	Obama +1.0
Mellman	10/25/12	49	44	Obama +5.0
American Research Group	10/25/12	49	47	Obama +2.0
CNN/Opinion Research *	10/25/12	48	44	Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies	10/25/12	46	44	Obama +2.0

Rasmussen has a history of polling a few points toward the R so these results are all pretty much in line - they show Obama with a 2 to 4 point lead in Ohio - with the exception of Wenzel.  Well maybe its just statistical noise in his sample.  So let's look at a few of Wenzel's other recent polls (polls again from 538).  Here is the Ohio Senate race of current Senator Sherrod Brown (D) vs State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R)

Polls	Date	Dem	Rep	Margin
Ipsos (online)	11/02/12	50	42	Brown +8.0
Ipsos (online)	11/01/12	50	42	Brown +8.0
Ipsos (online)	10/31/12	49	41	Brown +8.0
Wenzel Strategies	10/31/12	45	50	Mandel +5.0
U. of Cincinnati/Ohio Poll *	10/30/12	49	44	Brown +5.0
SurveyUSA	10/29/12	46	41	Brown +5.0
PPP	10/28/12	53	42	Brown +11.0
The New York Times/Quinnipiac	10/28/12	51	42	Brown +9.0
Gravis Marketing	10/27/12	48	47	Brown +1.0
Rasmussen	10/23/12	48	44	Brown +4.0
U. of Cincinnati/Ohio Poll	10/23/12	51	47	Brown +4.0
SurveyUSA *	10/22/12	43	42	Brown +1.0
Suffolk	10/21/12	46	39	Brown +7.0
Quinnipiac	10/20/12	51	42	Brown +9.0
PPP	10/20/12	49	44	Brown +5.0
Angus Reid	10/20/12	45	39	Brown +6.0
Rasmussen	10/17/12	49	44	Brown +5.0
SurveyUSA *	10/15/12	43	38	Brown +5.0
Pulse Opinion Research	10/15/12	47	41	Brown +6.0

Here is the Missouri Senate race of current Senator Claire McCaskill (D) vs Congressman Todd Akin (R)

Polls	Date	Dem	Rep	Margin
We Ask America *	10/30/12	48.6	45.2	McCaskill +3.4
Mason-Dixon	10/25/12	45	43	McCaskill +2.0
PPP *	10/21/12	46	40	McCaskill +6.0
Rasmussen	10/17/12	51	43	McCaskill +8.0
Wenzel Strategies	10/13/12	45	49	Akin +4.0
YouGov	10/11/12	47	42	McCaskill +5.0
PPP *	10/03/12	46	40	McCaskill +6.0
Rasmussen	10/02/12	51	45	McCaskill +6.0

Are you seeing a pattern here?  I am not the only person to have noticed the "uniqueness" of Wenzel's polling results (see here) but I believe that I am the only person to have used it as the inspiration to found my own polling firm.

Could Wenzel be correct about the Presidential race in Ohio?  Doubtful but possible.  Could Wenzel be correct about the Ohio Senate race?  No.  And I am willing to put my money where my mouth is on this one with odds.  Fritz Wenzel - I will agree to pay you 10,000 USD if Mandel wins if you agree to pay me 5,000 USD if Brown wins.  In fact I will make that bet with anyone.  Any takers?

ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE:  While I am disappointed that Mr. Wenzel didn't respond to my bet - I am still willing to accept 5,000 USD from him now that Sherrod Brown has whooped Josh Mandel  :)